McCallum Quintuplets

by Kasey Michaels

  “Thank God,” he murmured, his arms around her tightening to hover just this side of real pain with their pressure. “Thank God.”

  Then she realized that all he had on was his jeans, and the rain was cold and driving. The wind felt bitter through her wet clothes. “We…we need to get you inside,” she said, drawing away but holding his arms as she looked at him in the night and the storm. His hair was plastered to his head, and she looked at his feet, all but buried in the muddy bank by the ruined car, then at him.

  “You…you’re barefoot,” she said.

  “And you’re alive,” he breathed, leaning down to kiss her, heat and comfort in that contact, and it lingered despite the pounding elements around them. Then he drew back. “Let’s get up to the house now.”

  She looked beyond him and saw then just how far into the ravine she’d plunged. The dark shadows of brush and weeds climbed above them, and there was a huge swath of damage caused by the Jeep. “How?” she asked.

  “We can do it.” It was all he said as he grabbed her hand and turned, reaching with his free hand for the heavy brush to his right. “Just follow me. Think about dry and warm and a hot shower.”

  She went with him, but all she could think of was him, and him saying that you never knew how much time you had. That you couldn’t count on tomorrow and today was all there was. And the babies, how tiny and needy they were, and how much they needed both her and Adam. It seemed to take forever, but they finally climbed onto the drive, and Adam turned to her, lifting her off her feet in one motion.

  “You don’t have to—”

  “Oh, yes, I do,” he muttered and carried her up the drive toward the cabin.

  Neither of them spoke until they were inside and Adam was lowering her to stand in front of him in the great room. The lights were off, but she didn’t need light to see her husband, to see everything about him. And everything about herself. “Adam, I—”

  He leaned toward her, touching her lips with his fingers, a cold contact that made her shiver. “Shh, you need a hot shower. You need dry clothes. Then we’ll talk. I promise.”

  He was right. She needed time to think, to sort through things. She shivered again and admitted, “You’re right.”

  “Okay, go and get your shower.” He drew back, not touching her anymore, and she was unable to read his expression. That bothered her more than the mud, the rain and the scrapes that were stinging.

  “I’ll…I won’t be long,” she murmured and hurried into the master bedroom.

  Adam watched her go, then went in the opposite direction, to the kitchen, then to the room off the laundry. There was a small shower there that they used after swimming, and he stripped off his jeans, turned on the water and stepped under it.

  He wished he could push that image of the Jeep disappearing out of his mind. But he couldn’t, any more than he could get rid of that moment of pure, raw panic and fear that had gripped him. Running through the storm, rocks pressing on his bare feet, slipping and sliding down the ravine to the ominously still car—the events were etched in his mind.

  He thought she was dead, that he was right where his father had been so many years before. Alone. With children he adored but the love of his life gone. And it was almost too much to bear. Until he’d seen her crawling out of the car window, sliding down the slick metal. Then she had been in his arms. Real and alive. Holding him. His life.

  He scrubbed at his cold skin, trying to get warm, trying to focus on here and now. On Maggie and on him. And he knew what he had to do. He got out, turned off the water and grabbed a towel. He dried himself, then wrapped the towel around his hips and headed through the house. He knew what he had to do, and he knew he should have done it sooner. He should have known that it was the only thing he could do.

  MAGGIE STEPPED OUT of the shower, wrapped herself in her white terry-cloth robe and stood very still in the steamy bathroom. Focus, focus. That’s what she had to do. She had to stop these scattered fears and dreads. She had to get to what Adam had said, the core of them. The connection they had, that she prayed they still had.

  She flipped off the light and stepped into the master bedroom, and Adam was there. His hair was slicked back from his face, exposing a tightness in his expression that was almost painful to see. She dropped her gaze and saw the towel riding low on his lean hips, the dark hair just above it. The flat stomach. Her mouth went suddenly dry, and words that seemed to be bombarding her deep inside wouldn’t come out.

  He was very still, then he came across to her, looking at her, studying her with narrowed eyes. She realized he had something in his hand, and he was holding it out to her. The cell phone. She looked at it, not touching it.

  “Call Grace,” he said. “Don’t tell her about the accident, but tell her that we’ll both be there as soon as we can make it.”

  She looked at him, not understanding. “Adam, the car’s ruined. It’s my fault, and now we’re stuck, and—”

  “Please, just call her. I’ll work out the details.”

  “No,” she said, putting her hands behind her back.

  “What are you talking about? No? You couldn’t wait to get back home, and now you’re not even going to call Grace?”

  It sounded insane, but suddenly she knew exactly what she had to do. “Grace…she’s with Jackson, and she…she can call,” Maggie said, her throat getting tighter with each word. “Adam, I’m so sorry.”

  He was very still, then he said in a voice so low she almost couldn’t make out the words, “You’re sorry for what?”

  She turned from him, hoping that if she wasn’t facing him, she could get this out. It had to said. “For doing that. For crashing the car. For putting you through all this. For acting so…so irresponsibly.”

  “Maggie, don’t do this,” he said from close behind her, but she didn’t turn. Instead she went toward the French doors and stared out at the storm.

  “No, I need to say this while I can still get it out,” she said with raw frankness. “You were right about me. My mother…she…she walked out. She just left.”

  He touched her then, his hands on her shoulders, and she closed her eyes tightly. “You don’t have to—”

  “I do,” she said, shrugging to stop his touch. She couldn’t do this if he was touching her. “I never really told you what happened. About my mother. She walked out, she left. But she didn’t just disappear one day. She left a note, and my dad, until he died, carried it with him. I only found it after he was gone. It was just before I met you.”

  “You never said anything,” he murmured.

  “I didn’t think I should. I mean, it was so personal, and it was so sad. She left because she couldn’t deal with anything. She left because she was so overwhelmed with her life that the best thing she could think to do was not be there. I wasn’t even a year old, and she told Dad to take care of me because she couldn’t. She wasn’t meant to be a mother, and she knew it.”

  The words seemed flat to her ears, almost devoid of emotion, yet it was ripping her heart out to tell Adam what she should have told him from the start. “So she just left me there. She never said she loved me. She never said she’d miss me. She just left.”

  “Oh, God,” he whispered and he touched her, putting his arms around her and pulling her against him. And she stayed there, her eyes closed, the note written on a torn scrap of paper so vivid in front of her that she could have been looking at it right then. “I’m so sorry.”

  “You were right. I almost thought that I could be like that… I’m not like her. I’m not. And when I met you, I loved you so fiercely, I knew I could love. And then the babies, my God, five of them, and so tiny and wonderful, and I loved them with all my heart.”

  She felt his chin rest on top of her head, and he held her more tightly. “I’ve told you and told you that you aren’t your mother. Now I know you aren’t.”

  “But what if I got overwhelmed, what if I couldn’t take it anymore, what if—”

  “You are overw
helmed and you can’t take it anymore, but your first instinct was to go right back to the babies, to be there, to dive right in and love them. Don’t you see, you’ve been where she was, and you came out of it still here, still loving them, still wanting to be with them above anything or anyone else.” He pressed a kiss to her hair. “Maggie, you went through fire, and all you’ve worried about is them getting burned. You won. You’re here.”

  His words sank into her soul, and she felt a peace she hadn’t felt since seeing that note. She felt whole and she felt right. And it was Adam who gave that to her. Who showed her that truth. And she loved him with a love that was staggering. She twisted in his hold, facing him, pressing her body as close to his as was humanly possible. Loving him more than she loved life itself. Tears were there, sliding down her cheeks, but there was no misery in her, just thanksgiving. “Adam, I realize what I have to do now,” she whispered.

  He gazed at her. “I know. I’ll find a car, some way to get you home.”

  “No, that’s not what I meant,” she said, resting her hands on his bare chest, feeling his heart, wondering how his heart could feel so much like hers.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I want to call home. I need to. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “I told you I do.”

  “But what you don’t understand is, it’s okay not to go if Grace says she’s got things under control. It’s okay to stay here, you and me.”

  “Maggie, you can go if I can find a car. Maybe I’ll call Dad or have some neighbor come over, but you’ll go.”

  “Give me the phone,” she said, moving away from him and holding out her hand. “Just give it to me.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, then turned, reached for the phone he’d dropped on a chair nearby, then handed it to her. “Here.”

  She put in their home number, then pressed Send and looked at him. She never looked away as she heard the ringing. Then Grace answered.

  “Grace, it’s Maggie.”

  “Oh, sweetie, I’m so glad you called.”

  That lurch of her heart was there, that fear in her that something had happened, but she wasn’t doing this alone. She reached for Adam, took his hand in her free hand, then spoke into the receiver. “What is it?”

  “Jackson, he’s okay. No fever, still fussy, but he’s actually sleeping now. I’m so glad Adam talked you out of coming back. There’s no need for that.”

  “Grace, Adam’s right here. Tell him what you told me, okay?”

  “Sure, sweetie, you two have a good time, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Maggie held the phone out to Adam, and when she saw him hesitate, she said, “It’s okay,” and the relief in his expression was overwhelming. “Jackson’s okay.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, then took the phone and said, “Grace?”

  He was silent. Maggie watched him, and his eyes never left hers. “Thanks, yes, we will,” he said, then hung up.

  He tossed the phone on the chair, then came toward Maggie. “I’ll still make it happen if you want to go back.”

  She looked at him. “Do you know how much I love you?”

  He exhaled in a rush. “I know how much you love the babies, too.”

  “Adam, you were so right—if there’s no you and me, there’s no family. You and me. We’re the start and the finish, and the babies are the middle part. I started this with you, and I’ll be here at the end, but in the between times I still want you here. I want us here. Do you understand? I’m not leaving. I can’t. I won’t.”

  He came to her without a word, gathering her to him, and they stood for what seemed forever, just holding each other. Each relishing the presence of the other, the reality that they were here, that they’d made it this far. And she was bound and determined that they’d make it to the end. She wasn’t her mother. She couldn’t just walk away. And Adam had known that all the time.

  She tipped her head, finding his lips with hers, and her kiss was answered immediately by his, by the hunger in him that was deep inside her. The robe and towel were gone, and they were in the bedroom, the two of them, together in a way they never had been before. Without doubts and without fear, and just because they both loved each other.

  Maggie went to him wholeheartedly, giving herself to him without reservation, without holding back anything, and Adam took her in the same way. He was over her, in her, filling her, and together they found a place where only the two of them could go. And they stayed there for what seemed a lifetime before the climax came and the descent to reality came with it.

  They were tangled together, holding each other in the soft darkness. The rain was a mist, barely brushing the windows, and the cabin was warm and snug and perfect. Adam held his wife, relishing the oneness that was there, that had been there the first time and was back again. That sense of life being right. “You’re okay with staying for the night?” he whispered against her bent head resting in the hollow of his shoulder.

  She shifted, lifting herself on one elbow to look at him. “I’m still worried and I’m still going to be a mother who frets. I mean, there are five little lives to worry about.” She dropped a kiss on his chest and felt him gasp at the contact. “I’m not perfect,” she murmured, “but I’m okay. And the one thing I want right now is to make sure that you and I are okay.”

  He lifted a hand to touch her cheek. “Oh, we’re okay, and we’re okay if we go back now or if we stay.”

  “Then let’s stay, and in the morning, we can call Grace and see how things are and see how she’s holding up.” She traced the line of hair on his chest with her forefinger. “And if she’s still sane and the babies are okay, what do you say we do what you wanted to begin with and stay for a few days?”

  He covered her hand on his chest with his. “Do you mean it?”

  “Oh, I mean it, I really mean it,” she whispered and bent to kiss him. “Will you stay with me?” she asked.

  “Oh, Maggie, forever,” he said and drew her down to him, to show her that forever began right then.

  Epilogue

  Six months later

  Maggie had wanted the birthday party for the quints to be quiet and just family, but Adam’s father had insisted on giving it at the McCallum Multiple Birth Wing at the Maitland Maternity Clinic. A way to celebrate everything at once, all of the blessings in his life.

  The guest list Maggie had, of just family, had expanded to include so many people she’d given up and let her father-in-law do it his way. The usually sterile cafeteria area was festooned with balloons, streamers and flowers, and three clowns made animals out of balloons and also painted faces.

  The quiet halls were alive with adults and with the children who had been born there, the miracles of the clinic.

  There were five cakes, three blue and two pink, on tables that looked like circus animals. Grandpa Jackson was carrying Douglas and his namesake, little Jackson. Grace had Julia, with Daniel toddling by her side, and Adam was just intercepting Gracie before she could put a hand in the nearest cake.

  The quints didn’t know what was going on, and they didn’t care. They loved the commotion, the attention and playing with the other kids. Maggie sat with her back against the wall, loving the five of them and their father.

  “Hey there,” someone said, and Maggie turned to find Annabelle Reardon—no, Beaumont now, the nurse who had been there when the babies had been born. “Isn’t this fantastic?” Annabelle asked, looking around the transformed room.

  “It’s incredible,” Maggie admitted. “Jackson thought it was a great idea, and I’m not up to fighting a McCallum man when he has his mind made up.”

  “I always knew you were smart,” Annabelle said. “Can you believe it’s been a whole year since those five little munchkins burst into this world?”

  It seemed like a lifetime, yet as if it could have been just yesterday. “It’s unbelievable,” Maggie said. “I could never thank you and your husband enough for everything you did for all
of us.”

  “Seeing you all here together is thanks enough, believe me. After everything you all went through, this is a certifiable miracle.”

  Maggie didn’t argue. She nodded, her eyes burning at the memories of what they’d survived. They were still together, all of them. A real miracle. “You…did you get cake?”

  “Cake? Did someone mention cake?” Zachary Beaumont was there, looking decidedly unlike a doctor. He came up behind his wife, hugging her to him and smiling as widely as Annabelle. “I love cake.”

  Maggie motioned to the five cakes. “Choose your color and go for it.”

  “Oh, I will,” he said on a soft chuckle. “How about you, Annabelle? Cake? Or do you think you can keep it down?”

  “None for me,” she said.

  “Okay, I’ll be right back,” Zach said and strode in the direction of the cake table.

  Maggie looked at Annabelle, and something struck her. “You’re sick?”

  Annabelle blushed but looked incredibly healthy. “Oh, no. I’m fine.”

  “But he asked if you could…” She looked at Annabelle then, really looked at her. She was glowing. She had that look, and Maggie’s eyes widened. “You’re…you and Doctor Beaumont, you’re expecting, aren’t you?”

  The blush deepened, and Annabelle lowered her voice. “We aren’t making an announcement just yet. It’s too early. I’m only six weeks along. We didn’t think this would happen.” She smiled a bit uncertainly. “It’s almost too good to be true, you know what I mean?”

  “I sure do,” Maggie said, and hugged her. “This is so terrific. So…so…”

  “It’s a miracle, just like your five,” Annabelle said. “A miracle.” Then Zach was back with a plate but without any cake.

  “No cake until they sing ‘Happy Birthday,’” he said. And Maggie saw the way he looked at his wife, the same way Adam had looked at her during the pregnancy. That mixture of joy and worry. Happiness and uncertainty.